Airport Beach w/Kidspot

[socaldiver]

I had the opportunity to finally meet and do a dive yesterday with Kidspot. Tim, it was a pleasure to finally meet you and get in a dive. Hopefully our schedules in the future will let us get together more often.

We used the scooters to start the dive and right off came across some eagle rays while heading towards Black Rock. After about ten minutes we reversed course and headed for the reef. Plenty of marine life and visibility probably around 70 feet or better. Saw a couple more eagle rays and a nice size octopus, one eel (have no clue what kind though).

This was my first time using a scooter, it was nice but for me it was a handful getting used to, more so on my exit than while in the water.

We hit a max of 43 feet, water temp was 79 at depth. the downside was we were only down for 68 minutes. Both of us still had plenty of air but decided it was time to end the dive since I had to do some "honey do's" before going to work.

Mahalo Tim for a great dive and the use of the scooter. A special Mahalo for your help at the end of the dive.

 

[kidspot]

Good meeting you Socal,

It'll be a few weeks before I can get away for another dive (just took on some new students ) but we'll definitely dive again once I'm free.

Gotta agree that carrying those scooters out on that exit is kinda rough Still trying to come up with a way to do that easily ...

Have fun finishing up those chores

Aloha, Tim

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

I've only dove with scooters a couple of times and both times my sac rate sucked bigtime. I think I was horsing the darn thing too much. But it was fun.

 

[kidspot]

So far I've found my SAC rate goes up quite a bit while scootering. I couldn't figure out why until today. Normally I dive in a near meditative state, barely moving, but when I'm scootering I am totally "STOKED" and fired up having fun, so I breathe faster just from the excitement.

 

[KrisB]

So far I've found my SAC rate goes up quite a bit while scootering. I couldn't figure out why until today. Normally I dive in a near meditative state, barely moving, but when I'm scootering I am totally "STOKED" and fired up having fun, so I breathe faster just from the excitement.

I didn't notice any when we were diving, Tim, but you might also want to be paying close attention to your regs.

Quite often they'll free-flow with the added pressure on the diaphragm -- you might have noticed how I unclipped my octo and threw it behind me until we were stopped... that's exactly why.

 

[BUGBAGGER]

I didn't notice any when we were diving, Tim, but you might also want to be paying close attention to your regs.

Quite often they'll free-flow with the added pressure on the diaphragm -- you might have noticed how I unclipped my octo and threw it behind me until we were stopped... that's exactly why.

Just a few notes from my experiences with scooters

In addition, when scooter diving the added pressure on the purge button of your primary (from moving at greater speed through and against water) can cause the diaphragm to be pushed in slightly causing the lever to remain or often become slightly open.

The newer regs with adjustable cracking pressure are particularly susceptible to this if you have them set for easiest inhalation effort.

This can also happen when you are swimming into a very strong current as we used to experience in North Carolina in the graveyard of the Atlantic or when you had to fight a strong current day in West Palm to swim against the current to reach a dropped item or diver in distress. (Normally we would drift dive with the current.)

If you have adjustable cracking pressure on your second stage, try making the cracking pressure slightly higher (tighter) before your next scooter dive. If that makes it uncomfortable to breath cause your adrenaline is pumping and you feel the need for higher flow put it back. But, I think you will find that you will actuaally be more comfortable and use less air.